


The ties that bind us

by WatermelonTuesdays



Series: Finding Family [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Emotional Constipation, Krolia (Voltron) is a Good Parent, Krolia is the best Mom, M/M, Questioning, Questioning Everything, Sexuality Crisis, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-17 22:24:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16982907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WatermelonTuesdays/pseuds/WatermelonTuesdays
Summary: Things are going well with Acxa until suddenly their not. It's mostly Lance's fault - except that it's all on Keith.-----His room is dark and silent when he returns that night, and he doesn’t even bother flipping the light on. He drops to his bed in misery and lets the certainty of Acxa’s absence overwhelm him. She hasn’t slept in her own room in months, but tonight she will, he is sure.A soft knock on his door startles Keith enough to pull him back from the brink of sleep.Keith isn’t expecting anyone, but he’s not terribly surprised to slide his door open and see his mother standing there.Keith steps aside to let her in and follows her to the couch area of the room. She doesn’t comment that Acxa is nowhere to be seen; Keith has the sinking suspicion that that’s exactly why Krolia is here.“So.” Krolia says. She doesn’t follow it up with anything, just leaves it hanging between them.Keith lasts about 2 full minutes before he gives in. Obviously, he cant fix this himself, who’s to say Krolia wont have any better insight.





	The ties that bind us

**Author's Note:**

> 1 MORE SLEEP UNTIL SEASON 8!!!!

Lance plants the first seedling of doubt.

He’s not exactly bragging, though that’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s more like he’s busting at the seams with excitement and disbelief, and if he doesn’t confide in Hunk, Keith, Pidge, and anyone else willing to listen, he might self-combust. 

Allura, in her infinite mercy, agreed to go out on a date with Lance some several weeks before. Not only agreed, she actually initiated the arrangement after it was pointed out to her that after so much rejection, Lance would likely never again make a legitimate move against the princess. So Allura took the reigns and asked Lance out. 

One middling successful date led to several weeks of increasingly successful dating, and throughout the entire process Lance has been clinically unable to keep his excitement and wandering thoughts to himself. 

So Hunk and Keith have taken it mostly onto themselves to endure his endless ranting about the princess, if for no other reason than to save both Lance and Allura’s reputations.

This day in particular Lance is in high spirits. 

“We did it,” he confides in a hushed voice, eyebrows wiggling as if independent of the rest of his face. “It was magical. She is perfect. It took, you know, some fumbling to get it right at first, but then we got there and it was just…” he drifts off, eyes going star-crossed in a way that makes Keith have to resist gagging.

“You did it already? Isn’t that a bit soon?” Keith asks, the hint of judgement in his voice hiding his own insecurities. 

Hunk looks at him like he’s lost his mind. “For these two? They’ve only been dancing around each other for months now. Ever since we came to Earth, really. I don’t think it’s too fast. I mean, we’re adults now, right?” The blush on Hunk’s face reminds Keith that Shay has been on Earth for months as well, and now Keith is blushing too.

“Ya, ya, it’s not too soon,” Lance defends. “Especially when it feels so right, you know? Everything she says – does! – makes my head spin, and I almost can’t stop myself. You know?”

Hunk’s sighing “yeah” is, thankfully, all Lance needs, because all Keith can do is nod stiffly. 

He has not felt like that. Not once so far with Acxa.

Not that he doesn’t enjoy him time alone with her… but… 

Keith waits until Lance is done getting it out of his system before he allows himself to find a safe corner alone to finish that thought. 

Because things are good with Acxa. They’ve done… stuff… not it but… stuff and that has been good. He doesn’t feel drunk in her presence – isn’t filled with that irrepressible need that Lance keeps talking about; but he likes it, he enjoys his time with her. Holding her in his arms feels right. 

He’s just not in any rush to move forward. 

And let’s face it, Keith has never been great with people or relationships or emotions. It’s not like he grew up with tons of examples of functioning relationships. The only one he’d ever seen up close was Shiro and Adam, and he’d never looked too close into the specifics of that because he was a young teen, and Shiro was his superior and his mentor, and what he did with Adam was none of Keith’s business.

Ok, so maybe Keith was a bit of a prude. 

Maybe that’s why he couldn’t even really think the words. Not in relation to Acxa. Not in relation to him. Not in relation to anyone, really. 

He was just a prude, and maybe slow to feel whatever it was that drove people to consummate their relationships. 

Or maybe it was a Galra thing? Because so far Acxa hadn’t complained with their pace. Or lack thereof.

And why was he judging himself based on Lance anyway? The man was a horn dog! As if any relationship Keith had would be even a fraction as physical as one of Lance’s.

That thought settles matters, and Keith leaves his quiet hiding spot and heads back out into the world.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

That night Keith and Acxa spar before bed. It’s something of a tradition they’ve created as part of Keith’s continued recovery. He’s cleared now for all exercises, and to fly Black, but his long recovery has slowed his reflexes and robbed him of some of his flexibility. It means that a lot of his leadership duties have taken a backstage to retraining his body, and that Keith is rarely far from the training rooms. 

This night, for the first night since they’ve started it, Keith pins Acxa. His eyes furrow into a searching glare, because Keith feels certain that she let him. Her last block had felt half-hearted, and she missed her opportunity to roll out of the way.

Then he catches the fire in her eyes. It’s not new, but it’s new to see it in the training room. 

She sinks down into the padded floor like she’s waiting for Keith to kiss her. He does, and when he does she flips him in a wrestling move she’s learned from old garrison training videos. She wrestles him up, around, and then down into the mat, keeping her body close as she moves against him. 

When she pins him, she grins, and presses a kiss to his lips before jumping up and back. She raises her arms defensively and Keith understands. Intimate sparring.

It’s something he can work with; a competition he wants to win. 

They spar until they become inappropriate, then retire back to Keith’s quarters. 

They continue their competition there, and while they still don’t do it, they do just about everything else until they are so tired out they stretch out on Keith’s bed and fall quickly to sleep. 

Just before sleep takes him, Keith thinks to himself that this isn’t so bad. It’s something he can definitely get used to. Maybe he’s not so far behind Lance as he thought. 

~*~*~*~*~*~

Shiro plants the second seedling of doubt. He interrupts another misguided attempt at intimacy to pull Keith into an impromptu meeting with visiting delegates. When Keith meets Shiro out in the hallway a few minutes later, hair combed and uniform straightened, Shiro offers him a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes and says “it’s nice to see you so happy.”

But Keith isn’t sure if he is happy.

I mean, he is. He is happy. Undoubtedly.

But is he happy in the way he’s supposed to be? 

He had thought that dating Acxa, settling into an easy rhythm with her, welcoming her wholeheartedly into his family unit, would ease some of that clawing uncertainty that had plagued him before. It hasn’t. 

At least, not enough. 

He must look happy, however, or else Shiro wouldn’t say such a thing. But is it really enough to look it and not feel it?

Keith sighs as he walks a half-pace behind Shiro, a mark of respect more than a sign of deference to Shiro’s rank. Objectively, there is nothing wrong with Acxa or their relationship. But still, he feels no fire.

He can’t blame it on his Galra heritage anymore either, because Acxa is all Galra and she certainly feels the fire. Passion burns in her like a brand when they’re alone. Sometimes it’s like a wildfire raging behind her eyes, and Keith feels like if he could just touch it once then he could burn alongside her indefinitely: borrow her fire until they both burn out. As of yet, though, he’s been unable to steal so much as a spark to himself. 

The illusion of competition helps – it helps so well that Acxa’s given up the pretense of trying anything else. She issues her desires as a challenge that Keith can rise to, she fights and torments until she gets the heady press of their bodies together and Keith is chasing her mouth to claim it with his own. 

Not that they can’t be soft, Keith reflects as he takes a seat in the large meeting room. He takes a seat along the wall, back away from the table and behind Shiro to use his commanding presence as a shield. He is too distracted with his own thoughts to pay proper attention; but he knows this meeting is more formality than anything else and that the only reason Keith was even invited is because of his position as leader of Voltron. 

No, if anything, the soft moments are the ones where Keith excels. Those small tender moments between two people: holding each other tight, brushing each others’ hair, pulling each other close at the end of the night. Keith is great at those parts, behind closed doors. He feels emotion for Acxa. A great deal of it. 

But is that enough without the rest?

It feels like the relationship has an expiration date, and it feels like Keith’s fault. If he had even an inkling of a clue of what to do, he would do it in an instant, but he has none. 

The meeting is over in a flash. A two-hour-long flash, but Keith pays so little attention it feels like no time at all. 

Shiro tries to grab Keith at the end of the meeting, and Keith can see the ‘are you ok’ lurking behind Shiro’s grey eyes. But Keith is not in the mood to try and lie to Shiro, and though Shiro stopped pulling away a few months ago Keith still isn’t ready to air out his Acxa problems with his once-mentor. 

Not that it’s an Acxa problem – it’s firmly a Keith problem – but the sentiment stands.

So Keith slips out of the meeting without a word and wanders blindly around the compound for another hour before returning to slip quietly under the covers and pull Acxa into a lose hug. 

~*~*~*~*~*~

Though he doesn’t mean to, Keith quietly waters his seedlings of doubt until they take a firm root beneath his skin. He pulls back from Acxa physically and also emotionally. He knows he’s doing it, and he hates that he’s doing it, but he feels helpless to stop himself until he can try and make sense of himself.

The teasing, arousing competition between them sours and annoys Keith more and more. It feels empty, cloying, even manipulative. He doesn’t want to be tricked into making out, but that’s what it is. It’s the only thing that works, except that lately it doesn’t. 

The first time it fails, Keith tries to force himself anyway, kissing at pawing blindly at Acxa until enough time passes that he can leave her under the pretense of needing a shower before bed. The second time, he does his best to redirect her energy into actual training until she finally backs off. 

Soon enough, anything that is not strictly profession training sets Keith’s nerves alight; his notorious short fuse getting the better of him once again. As soon as Acxa presses her body close to Keith’s he pushes her away and become snappish and aggressive. 

Eventually, she takes the hint. She stops goading him and returns to focusing on actual training. Then she stops joining him for training at all. All signs of physical intimacy between them draw to a close, though neither of them addresses the issue.

Even the quiet intimacy, the small things he was best at, start to stall. They die off more slowly than their attempts at passion, but they are more noticeable in their absence. 

They no longer hold hands as they walk down the hall, no longer kiss or hug in greeting even when alone. At night, Keith sleeps far away on his own side of the bed, and Acxa no longer reaches for him to close the distance. 

He knows he’s not the only one pulling away, not any more, but Keith feels the sharp stab of guilt very keenly because he is the one who started it. 

He wants desperately to end this nonsense, to go back to the way they were before his mind was wracked with doubts and guilt and shame, but he has no idea how. He can’t wrap his head around his own thoughts and emotions; the harder he tries the harder it becomes to even concentrate. None of it makes sense and he doesn’t understand why he can’t make it work. 

Things should be so easy with Acxa; they had been before. 

A part of himself begins to blame Lance – Lance and Allura – even Hunk a little bit. Didn’t they all start this? Wasn’t it their talk, their easy comradery with their significant others, that planted those seeds? 

Keith tries his best to be fair and not to take it out on his team, but working overtime to perfect their fighting techniques is the best distraction he can hope for and it’s hard to give up. Plus it gives his a ready-made excuse to avoid Acxa. So, he works them to the bone with little mercy.

The day finally comes when everything goes wrong.

It starts early, just after Keith and Acxa get up for the day. Keith showers because he hadn’t the night before, and then he sits, half-dressed, on the bed to pull on his socks when Acxa comes up behind him. She has a towel and a brush and she doesn’t say a word. She only reaches up to dry and brush through his long locks.

In the past, this had been Keith’s favourite activity. It was something soft and simple, and it showed how much they cared for each other without having to speak. Keith wasn’t good with words and Acxa wasn’t much better. They were both better with actions.

But this morning, the act threw Keith into a crisis that ended very quickly in anger.

Acxa knew he loved this, she knew things had been difficult for him lately, and while a part of Keith understood that she was just trying to show him that she still cared, all he could do was think she was being incredibly selfish. Didn’t she see the guilt and self-loathing that was filling him to the brim? Couldn’t she leave him alone for just a minute? 

Didn’t he have enough on his plate to stress and worry about that wasn’t how their relationship was crashing and burning around him?

Keith has just enough restraint not to throw Acxa off him. He stands quickly and snatches the brush away from her hands. 

“I can do it,” he says shortly, and turns away quickly. He doesn’t turn away fast enough to miss the light dying behind her eyes, but it was fast enough that he can pretend he did. 

Acxa says nothing, but the bathroom door slams shut behind her and the lock clicks with a finality that makes Keith wince. 

Keith is angry through breakfast and the first meeting of the day. He lies when Hunk asks him if he’s ok, and the avoids the same question when it’s posed by Shiro a few hours later. He puts the team through the ringer during flight training, then pushes his body to the brink of total exhaustion while training with Kolivan that evening.   
His room is dark and silent when he returns that night, and he doesn’t even bother flipping the light on. He drops to his bed in misery and lets the certainty of Acxa’s absence overwhelm him. She hasn’t slept in her own room in months, but tonight she will, he is sure.

A soft knock on his door startles Keith enough to pull him back from the brink of sleep. 

Keith isn’t expecting anyone, but he’s not terribly surprised to slide his door open and see his mother standing there.

Keith steps aside to let her in and follows her to the couch area of the room. She doesn’t comment that Acxa is nowhere to be seen; Keith has the sinking suspicion that that’s exactly why Krolia is here. 

“So.” Krolia says. She doesn’t follow it up with anything, just leaves it hanging between them.

Keith lasts about 2 full minutes before he gives in. Obviously, he cant fix this himself, who’s to say Krolia wont have any better insight.

“I don’t know,” he says on a heavy sigh. “Things just don’t feel right with Acxa anymore. And I don’t know how to get back to where we were before.”

“Well what caused the change?” 

Krolia’s practical approach to the conversation helps ease some of the awkwardness of having this conversation with his mother. Keith breathes a little easier when he responds.

“Lance and Allura. And Hunk and Shay. They were all getting… intimate,” no, this was still an awkward conversation to have with your mom! “And Acxa and I just weren’t. I could tell she wanted to, but I… I don’t know, I guess I’m not ready? Or something.”

Keith takes another deep breath because saying it out loud is helping. “I want to be, but I just…” he shrugs. “It’s pretty stupid, though, right? To get mad over that. I should just suck it up and do it! But every time I try I get so angry.” He sighs again and lets silence fall over them again, trying to gather his thoughts.

“And how do Lance and Hunk fit into this?” 

“They were just talking, a while back, and their girlfriends and how far they’d gone. You know how Lance was when he first started dating Allura.”

Krolia lifts her nose at the memory. “I remember,” she says distastefully. 

“And they had just done so much more, and faster than me and Acxa had, and it just kind of got to me.”

“Are you saying you were comparing your life and desires on that of others? Keith, you know that will never lead to happiness.” She doesn’t say it like she’s disappointed in it – more like she’s sad for him. Like it’s sad that he would think that way.

“No – well, maybe I was, a bit, at first. But it’s not just that, they just showed me where I was deficient. I think I probably would have got here on my own anyway. You can’t keep from doing – it – forever; not in a relationship. I want to be ready, I want to be able to give Acxa what she wants, but I’m not there yet and it’s been so long now, I kind of hate myself for it.”

Krolia looks lost in thought for a moment, rolling over Keith’s words in her head.

“Keith, do you love Acxa?”

“Of course!” Keith responds maybe a little too quickly, too adamantly, because Krolia’s lips turn down at his response.

“No, maybe I’m not being clear. Do you desire, Acxa?”

Keith’s head slaps forward, staring intently at the coffee table before him, feeling his cheeks burn brightly. He wishes fervently that this conversation weren’t so necessary.

“You’ve been together a long enough time now, almost a full earth year. You say you want to do it for her, but do you want to do it for yourself?”

Keith stutters, his mouth working like a fish that got lost in its tank.

“There is a difference between not being ready for a person, and not desiring them at all.”

“I don’t know,” Keith feels defensive and the emotion bleeds into his words unwillingly. He can feel Krolia’s sharp eyes on him and knows he must look tense, he feels tense, but there’s nothing he can do to stop himself.

“There’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t, you know. When I was young there were many nice men and women who desired me, but I had no interest in any of them. Not until I met your father.”

“Mom,” Keith protests, rolling his eyes away from her. He doesn’t want to hear it, though a small part of him acknowledges that he feels better for hearing it. “I don’t hate it when we do stuff. I’d probably enjoy it if we did more…. But, if I’m being honest?” 

He looks up to Krolia, who gives him an encouraging nod. 

“I don’t think I want her the way she wants me. Or the way other people seem to want each other. Maybe I’m just…” his voice fades out, and when Keith speaks again his voice remains faint, “maybe I’m just not built that way.”

Krolia nods again and pulls Keith into her side in a reassuring hug. “Maybe you’re not, and if you’re not, then that’s ok. But I think maybe it’s just that Acxa isn’t the right one for you.”

Keith blinks at his mother’s words. 

If he had any idea where this conversation was going when she walked in here, he was completely and utterly wrong about it. 

“Leave Acxa?” he asks in surprise, looking up at his mother from an odd angle, tucked away under her arm. “But… she’s part of our family.”

Krolia looks surprised by that. “What do you mean, Keith?”

“We’ve made a little Galra family here: me, you, Kolivan, and Acxa. And you and Kolivan love her so much…”

“You don’t have to date her for her to be part of our family,” she says seriously, and then in a lighter tone, “I hope you don’t plan on dating the rest of the family, I don’t want to fight you for Kolivan.”

Keith laughs at that, “Gross!”

“He’s not gross, Keith. He’s… dreamy.” 

Keith gags at that. He regrets some of the earth vocabulary Krolia and Kolivan have picked up since landing on Earth. 

“He is not. You can keep him! Gross.” They laugh again and Krolia ruffles Keith’s hair affectionately. 

He waits until they calm back down before he returns to their discussion. “So… if we did break up… that would be ok?”

“That would be fine, Keith. I just want you to be happy. We all do. Even Acxa.”

Keith winces at that. 

Sensing Keith’s hesitation, Krolia adds, “You know, I was surprised you had started dating her in the first place. She didn’t exactly seem your type.”

Keith understands what she means despite the fact that he has no idea what she means by his type. He doesn’t have a type, does he?

“I don’t know… she seemed like such a good fit into our family, I wanted to try. And it wasn’t all bad. I do love her.”

Krolia pulls Keith closer, resting her chin on the top of his head and holding tight enough that it’s hard for him to breathe. 

“I know. But family can take all kinds of forms. And it’s not up to you to keep us together on your own, ok? You just do what you need to be happy, and we’ll do the same. Ok?”  
Keith smiles against his mom’s shoulder, “Ok.”

He speaks with Acxa the next day. He takes her up to the roof where she had first asked him out and hopes she doesn’t take it as a cruel irony, because that’s not how he means it. He wants to take her somewhere that’s special to them to try and explain himself. He wants to end things amicably, so that when she’s able to return his offer of friendship they can do so without any underlying resentment. 

He also wants to give her a place to scream, and maybe even throw a few punches, without causing a scene in the garrison commons. 

She takes it better than he had hoped. She takes it like she knew it was coming, which hurts in a very different way from what Keith had been expecting. 

Keith apologizes enough that the sentiment almost loses its meaning. He explains everything, going over the last months of their relationship like a romance autopsy. He tells her everything he had been feeling that he had tried to avoid or repress.

He does it because he thinks she deserves to know. And because he wants it to be clear that none of this was her fault.

“I don’t think I could have made it this long, if it wasn’t for you. I’m sorry for everything I put you through, I know I was a train wreck. But, I just wanted to say thank you for everything.”

They both cry, and hug, and in the end Keith tilts Acxa’s face up for one last parting kiss before he leaves her in the blazing light of the sunset to work through her own emotions.

Keith heads for his room. It’s been an emotionally draining few days – hell, it’s been an emotionally draining few months! – and Keith wants nothing better but silence and solitude to work through everything again.

Somewhere along the way, however, Keith changes his path. He directs himself instead down the familiar corridors that lead to Shiro’s room. He has kept this all too himself for too long, and knows he will work things out better with Shiro than he ever on his own. It’s the missing piece to sorting out his feelings, it has been from the moment Shiro stepped into his life. 

He knocks on Shiro’s door and is let in without question. 

Seeing the surprised but easy smile on Shiro’s face makes Keith think that maybe he had been neglecting his other family these last few months while he had been fixating on his Galra one. But he knows it’s ok if he did: Shiro wasn’t going anywhere.

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, I love writing Krolia, so much. My inspiration for that conversation with her was basically just "I don't know what you're freaking out about, you're very clearly gay. Just stop trying to date a woman" but without having her actually say that. I hope it came through.
> 
> Tomorrow is a Sheith update! Still unsure if it'll be NSFW... I'm working on it!
> 
> Tumblr: WatermelonTuesdays  
> Twitter: WTuesdays


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